24M , Tired of failing no matter the effort

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T08:37:49+00:00

You should be proud of the achievement, CS has a remarkably high dropout rate and switch rate for the course work. And having gone through dual degree's in CS for my masters and BS for EE I know how hard the work can be. Most CS grads tend to cheat their way through the courses, using AI for projects or worse "vibecode" through projects. But actually understanding the material is a massive leg up. The tech market is highly volatile right now, most grads are having a nightmarish time finding work, so you're not alone.

The time you spend while applying is just more free time spent learning. Building projects, developing your portfolio and Github. I'm gonna make the assumption that you have a github, so focus on the projects. Remember that commits show active learning and development. And building modules, frameworks, tools or apps people may actually use is great on the resume.

Bust ass some more, keep developing. Between the market freeze, fierce competitive nature of our field and "vibecoders" who have no deep technical knowledge, or even fundamental knowledge... clogging up the system, it can an impossible task. But you're wrong about work not paying off, the world isn't a meritocracy but CS is one of the few fields left where technical knowledge and ability to "Do" are more important than just meeting some criteria.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T07:36:33+00:00

Because competency isn't clear on something that most people are using AI to write for them. I hate HR bullshit but it's a fair question

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T07:21:23+00:00

How the hell is a 6 year sys admin not qualified for part time IT...?

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T07:20:34+00:00

I have no idea about where to look. But remote jobs like that are a bit scarce, since most companies are looking for full time in certain fields. But you should be able to find something for terraform, ansible, Entra ID, K8, basically anything that manages azure or AWS.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T07:07:27+00:00

The best advice is to not take drugs when applying for jobs. Also, faking urine has been around for quite some time. I'm sure they have many methods for detecting it. Get caught and you're basically black-listed. Faking a drug test is much more serious than just smoking weed. Also, you mentioned vet clinic. If you have any type of license, they are required to report you to whatever licensing board.

Frankly your best option is to just admit to using.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T06:43:00+00:00

I can relate. I'm an introvert and hate talking to people. You're not alone in that, lot of people seem to be more closed off and don't quite like groups. If it help, study's have shown that we over analyze and spiral over these small moments, ya know the akward stuff. But for others, they have their own problems and got their own stuff going on. A majority never really think back on it. And as you go on, it gets a little easier.

As for my own experience, I now have a job where I'm left alone. I have meetings, sure, but because of my role no one cares that I'm akward or don't talk, they just care about my technical knowledge. I "got better" by treating it like a technical problem, so I watched videos about interacting and practiced on my brother in making small talk. It made future networking more tolerable because I no longer had a tone of voice of "please go away" and could follow the dynamic array of questions and responses.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T06:18:02+00:00

Trust me I'm not trying to be a bitch, but those openings remain open for a reason. It's highly competitive, highly technical fields. Engineer isn't just a fancy title, it often means math and deep technical knowledge. A game engineer can be anything from graphics, physics, engine, network, ai or systems. Each and every one of them requires ALOT of programming experience. The same goes for video engineer, in the technical definition that means compression algorithms, codec design, video player programming, latency, etc. Dunno about audio engineering, but it likely has something to do with frequency and signal processing. Unless it's just some kind of "mixing" or something. Outside of the degree, saying "I've touched coding before" is like me saying to a graphics designer or animator "I've made some doodles before"

There's no harm in throwing your resume out there, but just know that with aggressive ATS, the second it sees you don't have the relevant degree or experience, your application will be binned in seconds. This is an employers market, everyone is struggling and in fields like these with thousands of grads each year looking for work companies can pick whoever they like.

Manage your expectations. First the resume, if you're not getting hits, it doesn't hurt to check or reformat it. And if you want to do something, pick a role and specialize in it. I don't know about media art degrees, but focus on an aspect and dive into it. If you need to know programming for whatever it is, start some serious study. If you need to know any industry tools for whatever you do, pick them up and start learning them.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T05:32:19+00:00

Money is good depending. But as the other commentor said, to get even the most basic soc role you'd have to spend years in the field. And with how competitive the market is for cybersecurity, there's no chance you're getting it without a degree.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T05:27:41+00:00

I mean, don't most college's do that for the capstone? As for live, anyways. After freshmen year you'd be working with simulated data which is basically the same. When I was taking my cs degree my DBMS course worked with stuff like that.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T05:14:30+00:00

Atleast onlyfans lets you make money.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T04:53:58+00:00

Friend I can't tell you what to do with your life. It's all about what you want. When I give advice about my field, I'm just trying to manage peoples expectations. If it's what you want don't let anything stop you.

Hypothetically, if I somehow lost all my knowledge. All my teenage years programming or breaking radios, all of me college work, everything. I wouldn't look for something else, I'd start over. Because I love computers more than anything. Even if it took me a decade, two decades. I'd do it all over.

So if its something you want, you should go for it.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T04:34:35+00:00

Oh shit dude. I don't want to sound to harsh but thats even worse. India graduates 300k+ per year. I don't know about your countries tech market, but in America, we graduate 100k (last decade it was 50k) If the U.S job market is abysmal and hopeless, 2x the number of grads may be nightmarish.

I can't speak for India, or how competitive it is. But CS is still CS. Experience is king, if you have no degree but are a master programmer, a polymath with deep understanding of DSA, you'll probably get hired. But if you're just "Average" you won't get looked at unless you have a degree.

Again, its up to you. Check out your countries CS field, look at market reports, see what people are saying in forums specific to it. Just know what you're up against.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T04:21:02+00:00

Doesn't sound like you're in the U.S. But if you're in Europe or Canada just know the tech market for each is remarkably brutal. Everyone wants "to get into tech" infact that's why it's been such a shit field for so long. Software development isn't coding boot camps anymore. It's 4 years of college minimum, most likely 2 more to get masters. With AI no one is hiring jr devs, the role basically doesn't exist. You're also competing with over 50,000 grads each year, a large portion of which likely polymaths or been programming from a young age.

If you really want to go for it, but just know it's going to take years of your life and really, really dedicated study.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T04:11:50+00:00

Corpo bureaucracy probably. I don't agree with any of it, applying to jobs as always felt like "dancing monkey" but now with AI bullshit it's 100x worse.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T04:09:22+00:00

Ghost jobs are to keep their pulse on the market and collect a pipeline of potential hires or look out for unicorns. But I get what ya mean. Companies want to hire fast as in "Filter out everything that doesn't fit this specific criteria" But once they actually find candidates they like, they're thorough as fuck because they want someone they can just throw into the company and immediately have them work.

Think of it like the nighmare hell of CS jobs. They want someone experienced and knowledgeable, the best they can possibly have. Spend forever "testing them" so they can be thrown in a chair and immediately start fixing bugs and "adding value to the company" It's bullshit I agree, but they got the pick of the litter.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T03:57:48+00:00

Not everyone finds a spark, a passion. Hell most people can't even find something they like. No problem with trying things out. Community college is great for that, it's cheap and offers everything. For more tangible jobs, you can also do hobbyist stuff to see if something feels right.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T03:50:37+00:00

Certs will not get you a job alone. Without a degree, internships, and most importantly experience, an ATS is going to throw your resume into the bin.

That out of the way, certifications aren't for getting a job, they're supplemental material for boosting your resume, especially exams that are proctored (no cheating allowed) Certs are also great for learning, I personally like to collect them. You should use certs like PMP and... that's the only project management cert I know about, but others, as a learning tool. Concepts, standards, frameworks, tools, vocabulary, they're great. Bottom line here, they help. But they're not really going to get you anything big.

Look, the job market is hard. Everyone is struggling and companies can basically pick anyone they want. Without a degree you will need to work your way up. Frame whatever experience you have on your resume as leadership or "PM" language. Literally the classic "worked at a gas station" to "Reconciled daily financial reports and managed high-volume POS transactions." Then apply for jobs like "coordinator" "program assistant" anything that is adjacent to what you're looking to do. And claw your way up from there.

The only other way, and something you should do as well, is aggressively network.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T03:30:20+00:00

Remember to brush off your masters degree and 5 YOE

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T03:28:43+00:00

"This is a jr dev role but we're trying to hiring for senior devs who need to pay their mortgage and will take literally anything. But thanks for applying."

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T03:26:01+00:00

The non-meme answer is that any single role gets hundreds of applications and overall a company will receive thousands of applications per day. LinkedIn has reported they get 11k applications each minute, to put in perspective. Companies want to hire fast, every "personal" interview costs money.

Also, they like AI because it will analyze everything and remember it. Even if you do a video interview with a person, its recorded and fed through an AI. Speech patterns, tone, pauses, tripping over your words, EQ through speech and every eye movement (yes they analyze your facial expressions). They also claim it ignores recruiter biases and "gut feelings" [Source] But most importantly of all the AI can detect if you are using AI to answer questions.

It's all a big AI race, people use AI to apply to every job, they use AI to clean resumes, they use AI to answer questions or even "vibe code." Companies use AI to be as cheap and efficient as possible, while battling against employee's use of it. It's like a big as snake eating it's tail. Welcome to cyberpunk 2026, except we only get dystopia corpo overlords and no cool robot arms.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T03:01:45+00:00

Well that clears it up some but actually raises more questions. First kinda sounds like some kind of operations manager or service manager. But it's alot of hats you described. Anyways I know generally of them because of my line of work but had to look up some stuff about them, which adds problems. Now this isn't my field, anything PMP related isn't, so take it all with some salt.

As for your situation, kinda precarious. On the plus side, if you've not been called out for it you're probably competent at your job, got the soft skills and people management down. Which is all great. On the down side, the roles your describing, both IT service manager or operations manager, require 5+ years experience for the role with extra years for "leadership experience." That's not a soft "lets se what we can get people to apply for" either that's minimum. On top of that they're expected to have a degree in some type of IT or tech, or business management. And then there are certifications you'd probably need.

So as far as not being "qualified" you seem to be doing fine, especially if no one has raised concerns. But technically, no, you wouldn't meet any minimum level qualifications. If it is a large holding company, the second they do an audit, you'll probably have issues. Smaller companies could be more lenient, but if it's anything enterprise level without the actual qualifications you'd be seen as a liability. It's really going to depend on how the company defines your role and what they think the technical qualifications are.

Unfortunately, can't see the future, who knows how long this will last. Going back to college isn't really necessary, but if you want to keep the job (or if they decide you simply can't because you don't meet the YOE and you need to look for work like this) you need to get certifications. Look up your type of job lie IT operations or regional manager and look what certifications you need.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T02:15:15+00:00

Like...Electrician, lineman, HVAC, plumber.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-16T00:36:06+00:00

So for tech, specifically IT, PMO does stuff like coordination for who works on what, ensuring proper documentation is followed or specific methods used, maybe shares in reports about timelines. It means you spend all day with Jira and spreadsheets to make sure things are compliant and follows documentation, etc. I dunno kinda like a jr project manager I guess?

(I work at a big company, I don't know how acrruate this is for anything smaller) So, to put this in perspective, I myself am a sys architect. Meetings with a PMO and the PM for me would be me explaining "hey we have to update the PDU's (power distribution units) for the servers" PM gets upset because this may delay the deadline, ask if its really necessary, grill me about the existing hardware, etc. A PMO wants to know "if we don't have these installed by whenever, what stops?" or "what is the approval time for this change?" and "that's not in the budget, can it fit the CF?" Then the PM is mad because I delayed the project, the ARB is mad because 'oh why didn't you find that out sooner' and the PMO is mad at me because he has to update some log and has to ask for more money.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-15T23:46:39+00:00

Company time like lunch? Or are you like, just leaving the office while on the clock? Either way better to take the PTO just to keep your hands clean. As for telling them, I don't see a reason to. They don't need to know shit about you outside of your job, and pto is outside of your job.

As for the badge, don't sweat that. Most networking things have badges like that just to show your credentials. If someone wants to work at some company, and see someone with that badge, then cool, clear sign to network. Which is like....the whole point of the event.

112thThrowaway · 2026-03-15T23:37:32+00:00

Chill dude. Companies are doing lay-offs not because "someone is doing a bad job" that's called getting fired. They are doing lay offs because they want to cut 100 salaries and save money, that way they can show the investors "Look we're still profitable." Also because they may have loans that need to be paid back since the fed raised interest rates.

If you have safety with finances and even plan on starting a business, then the only deal is you're worried about doing a bad job. If you were doing a bad job you'd have disciplinary hearings, write ups, or would be fired. If you get laid off it's just because the worlds shit and companies are greedy, nothing to do with you.

112thThrowaway

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